


You Had Not Expected This

by dustyfluorescent



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, Students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 15:29:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1433542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustyfluorescent/pseuds/dustyfluorescent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which they are both English Lit students and Arthur doesn’t really get Merlin but also can’t get enough of him. There's late night library camping, a coffee-related incident that results in nothing being the same again, lots of feelings, and a flat party that changes things. They get it on and listen to Godspeed You! Black Emperor and read really good poetry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Had Not Expected This

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Richard Siken's _Visible World_.

It is a weird thing how they stumble upon each other, though in retrospect maybe it was inevitable, what with both of them being English Lit students in the same year, and the limited amount of corners in the library for manic nighttime poetry analysis. 

Arthur’s frantic scribbles are aided by Red Bull and self-loathing, his hair a mess from running his fingers through it, tugging at it when he can’t breathe for his panic, every sentence he writes not good enough, not meaningful enough, not clever enough, never enough. Since he deliberately chose to study something his father could never approve of the least he can do is excel at it, prove him wrong, make him see there was never anything else Arthur could have done with his life. Except that sometimes he feels like he can’t even do this, and then by extension there is absolutely nothing he can do, and he falls into despair and falls asleep in the library when he should be working and submits an essay he isn’t happy with and gets a B1 he can’t make himself think is good enough by any standards. Even if he hasn’t slept all night he will go on every lecture with dark smudges under his eyes, with yesterday’s rumpled clothes on. Because he has to do better. He has to be better than this.

Merlin can’t seem to see it as work, as something serious. He stays in the library all night because he forgets to go home, he’s so absorbed in Bukowski, Murakami, Burroughs, Plath, he can’t put the book down until he’s felt every word to his spine, and sometimes he will forget to write his essays because he can’t stop reading and sometimes he forgets to go on a lecture because he’s writing an essay he declares with bright eyes to be the most brilliant thing since Ginsberg, and Arthur wonders what he’s on when he gets like that because nobody can just love it that much, writing an essay. But Merlin does, somehow. 

So they are on the same course writing approximately the same essays although not even a little in the same way, and neither of them really has all that many friends - Arthur’s too busy studying and he wouldn’t know how to talk to them anyway, and Merlin doesn’t really care about non-fictional people enough to make the effort - but if they did their friends would probably be completely different, too.

So they’re different. People often are. Arthur finds it staggering, though, that someone like that whirlwind of a boy could ever grab his attention so thoroughly. They’re different and far apart but run into each other they do, stumble upon each other’s existence, lock eyes and stop breathing and Arthur just knows -

that this useless pile of bones is a horrendous twat with no soul, and no mistake.

They don’t really know each other all that well. They know each other’s names and faces and that they’re doing the same course and that’s about it, but for some reason (not enough space, dammit) they share a table in the library one late - very late - evening. That, Arthur supposes, is where it starts.

It’s almost midnight. Arthur is writing, or more accurately crying about an essay due the next morning, still not done, still not _good enough_ , and Merlin is reading Naked Lunch like he has nothing else to do. That alone is enough to have Arthur raging, but then the twat takes a sip of his coffee - a coffee that he is just _drinking_ right there in the _library_ where there’s _books_ \- without even looking up. Merlin spills the coffee a bit but doesn’t seem to care, maybe doesn’t even notice, and then puts the mug back down. Except that he doesn’t put it back where it was. He puts it on top of Arthur’s textbook.

On top of Arthur’s textbook.

Arthur doesn’t need to lift the mug to see the damage. The ring of coffee is there, he’s seen it before, and he does not want it on the cover of his book. The drop of black liquid sliding down the side of the mug towards the cover of his fucking _forty-quid textbook_ is already a picture burnt painfully on the fabric of his memory, and it’s going nowhere.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing,” Arthur spits out in a completely inappropriately loud voice considering they are, in fact, in a library.

Merlin looks up and smiles. His gaze follows Arthur’s finger, pointing, outraged, at the offending coffee mug, and when Merlin sees it he blushes a bit, still smiling, and it is not endearing in the slightest. It’s horrible. Infuriating.

“Sorry, mate,” Merlin says and takes the mug away, leaving behind the dreaded circle of doom glistening in the flicker of the fluorescent light. Then he goes back to reading his book. 

Goes back. To reading. His book.

Arthur might just kill him if he doesn’t die of rage first.

“Sorry, mate?” Arthur says, and he doesn’t think he could sound more murderous if he tried, but Merlin just looks up and smiles like all is well in the world.

“Yeah,” he says. “I put my coffee on your book by accident so I said sorry and moved it elsewhere. What more do you want?”

Arthur is seething. Also distracted by Merlin’s face, the way he cocks his eyebrow and _looks_ at him, a challenge. He can’t think of anything to say. Eloquence was never Arthur’s thing; he’s a reader, a writer, not a talker. He would storm off but he has work to do so he just pointedly wipes the book cover dry with the sleeve of his jumper - for all the good that does - and looks away. Goes back to his books.

He can’t concentrate anymore. He’s super aware of Merlin’s breathing. His hands. Every time he moves. What a twat.

That’s where it starts. Arthur is already in lust with Merlin before he’s even really had the time to hate him properly, and isn’t that just the worst thing ever. He kind of adores Merlin and kind of can’t stand him, kind of can’t stop thinking about him and kind of can’t tell if it’s because he’s irritated or because he’s besotted and he really doesn’t care to know. 

He does know, however, that Merlin is beautiful, smart, and apparently incredibly talented, always there in the corner of his eye now that he has, unwillingly, started paying attention. So he watches him, decidedly doesn’t say anything or do anything. He just pines and thinks about it over and over, thinks about Merlin, thinks about what it would be like, anything, and it’s driving him crazy and he is in a state of perpetual panic because he can’t shake this feeling that his life is getting away from him and he is going to let it and never even notice. 

He would never admit that it might have anything to do with Merlin, and maybe it doesn’t, but it sure as hell feels like Merlin is at the centre of everything now and will remain there for the foreseeable future, and Arthur has no idea how to deal with it except let it chafe against him for the rest of eternity. He might die of it before trying to change anything. 

It’s a new order of things, new order of his bones, new order of words on his paper both written and read and he hates it. People shape people, not something Arthur is prepared to deal with. He always thought he was above all that. How cruel to find out this way, still a ring of coffee on the cover of his textbook reminding him that the basic form of everything is chaos and there is only so much control he can have over it. 

Merlin’s hair is always a mess, he won’t do anything about his shoelaces even when he knows they’re untied, in the summer he has grass stains on his jeans because he likes sitting outside and doesn’t really care about things like looking tidy or presentable. The books he carries around are coffee stained, spines cracked, covers ripped, some of them have clearly been read in the bath and some of them have clearly been inherited from someone even more chaotic than Merlin. 

The thought makes Arthur dizzy, and he has to sit down and smooth down the front of his shirt because he feels contaminated by the chaos of the world and it makes him deeply uncomfortable in a way he was never really aware of before. 

He tries to look away from Merlin and concentrate on other things. That doesn’t quite work but in the end he gets a balance going, manages to organise things in a new way to get through this, and it starts looking like he might learn how to live with a skin too sizes too small, with a boy in his life who bites his lip when he concentrates and makes it impossible for any mortal to look away. Arthur’s got it under control, though, completely under control. It’s what he does. He stays in control, even when things fall apart. It’s something his father taught him, in good ways as well as bad.

And then the new order of things cracks because Gwen, sweet kind Gwen who just loves everyone and wants everyone to get along, invites the second-year English Lit students to a flat party. Even Merlin (everyone loves Merlin even if Merlin doesn’t really care), even Arthur (nobody ever invites Arthur, but Gwen does). And Arthur would just not go, he would not, it’s not his scene, but then he hears that Merlin is going and something about him changes directions again and he decides, to hell with it, the new way of things wasn’t working anyway, he was wanking over the way Merlin blinks when he’s reading when he’s tired, for fuck’s sake, so he might as well go and see how far things might go, maybe he can find a new Arthur, and maybe - 

He doesn’t let himself imagine anything. No love thoughts. (There was never any love, he tells himself, but tiny little inner Arthur laughs in his face and actual human-sized external Arthur has to admit he has a point.) No sex thoughts. No kinds of thoughts about Merlin at all, just a calculatedly casual outfit that should be great for making friends, just a lot of alcohol to ease the actual making friends part of it, and Merlin being there is just a strange happenstance that has nothing to do with anything.

Arthur doesn’t make friends at the party. Gwen is lovely, and they could be really good friends if Arthur wasn’t so distracted by other things at the moment, and a few other people, like Leon, Percy and Elena, seem really great. Arthur kind of regrets he never made an effort to get to know these people any better and he swears to at least pretend to try later on even though he finds it a bit troublesome to care about that kind of thing and even more troublesome to navigate the maze that is human relations, but then Merlin arrives with his hair in disarray in a shirt so worn it’s practically see-through (probably on purpose), wearing skinny jeans that make Arthur pay keen attention to the curve of his arse, and Converse he’s failed to tie up properly once again. Merlin smiles, kind but distant, people want him here but he can’t really get into it no matter how much he feels like he probably should, and Arthur decides he doesn’t need friends at all.

Merlin sees Arthur and his smile changes. Arthur is not sure what to make of it. He’s crap with people but he wants, desperately, to be very excellent with Merlin the way he’s never cared about anyone else before. 

They end up ditching everyone. They sit on Gwen’s balcony, just talking. Merlin drinks and looks beautiful and chain-smokes, Arthur drinks and is freezing cold and disapproves of the smoking on principle but is kind of strangely enchanted by it, all the same.

Merlin is lovely. He talks with his hands and smiles startlingly wide and seems really okay with himself as a person, and Arthur finds it lovely and amazing. He doesn't say much but he can't stop watching the way Merlin exists, and every now and then Merlin stops and looks at him and smiles and the silence they share is the most brilliant conversation Arthur has had in his life.

Arthur is thinking about what might happen if he kissed Merlin now when Merlin puts out his seventh cigarette and says,

“You wanna go back to my place?”

Arthur dies and doesn’t understand what words are anymore, but he manages to nod which is good because he really, _really_ wants to go to Merlin’s place like you wouldn’t believe.

They walk. It’s not far, Merlin says, but it is bloody cold. Arthur doesn’t care. He’s just been freezing his arse on the balcony just to keep the infuriatingly attractive nicotine fiend company for he doesn’t even know how long, and Merlin’s hand brushing against his as they walk warms him up better than the booze did. 

In Merlin’s room there’s fairy lights, empty beer cans, a half-drunk bottle of red wine - no glasses, Arthur can’t help but notice - a dirty sock on a dirty plate on the floor. There’s candles and incense smothered in ash on the window sill, neon pink lighters and fags and a John Cooper Clarke book. On the wall, a poster of a skinny beautiful shirtless boy with eyeliner on who Arthur knows he should recognise, but his thoughts run away from him and he forgets to try and remember. Cut-outs from cheap porn rags, a headshot of Danny DeVito taped above the bed like it’s normal, like people do that. Handcuffs - _Jesus_ \- casually hanging off the headboard. Books, books fucking everywhere. Merlin seems to have one rickety-looking bookshelf but it’s long since given up on its mission to contain all of Merlin’s books which are now just scattered about the place in a fashion so disorderly it’s making Arthur a bit nervous. Piles on the floor, cracked spines, coffee stains on pages that stink of cigarettes with underlinings and folded corners, books on his bed, and Merlin casually pushes most of them on the floor before jumping on the bed with a grin that says he doesn’t even care that much.

Arthur doesn’t get it, but he finds it exciting, and that’s new. Like he’s stepped over some imaginary line he never realised was there until he met Merlin, and in meeting Merlin, he had realised that the line doesn’t even matter. It’s back now, somehow, when he’s in Merlin’s house. Where he lives. His own space. Where Merlin sleeps. Where Merlin is naked. Where Merlin wanks. Where Merlin has sex.

Arthur closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. No sex thoughts. Although Merlin would, with him. He’s sure of it. He’s - well, he’s relatively sure. He thinks he might, maybe. He’s thought about how it might go often enough, anyway. Like, this has happened a lot recently.

No sex thoughts. All sex thoughts strictly forbidden.

Merlin plugs his phone to a set of speakers, turns Godspeed You! Black Emperor on, and slumps back on the bed with a happy bounce and a grin on his face. Arthur bites the inside of his mouth to stop himself from staring, staring at that grin, that exposed strip of skin where Merlin’s shirt has lifted up, his arms, the line of his neck, the fucking _handcuffs right there like they have just been used like they were about to be used just now_ , swallows and looks down, and then gets to navigating his way through shoes and books and dirty clothes towards Merlin’s bed - the only place in the whole room where there’s any room to sit down - sits down on the edge, strangely scared. Like this could go wrong in very unexpected ways. Merlin is close, Arthur can feel his toes pressing against his lower back, and it feels like hot iron.

“So, this is me,” Merlin says, and Arthur smirks despite himself. No _sorry about the mess_ , no _it’s nothing special_ , no _would you like a drink_ , just _this is me_ , a cheeky grin, Godspeed and a press of toes against his back turning him on way more than is by any standards appropriate. And he thinks, _I think he might be into me_. It’s hard to say. _I think maybe he wants me_. But he doesn’t know for sure because he is Arthur and repressed and cannot bring himself to ask. He clings to the bedsheet with white fists like it could save his life if a tornado took a hold of them now, ripped this feeble high rise off its roots and took it to heaven. Like he could save himself holding on to Merlin’s sheets, Merlin’s foot stroking him like it’s nothing, like it isn’t burning him up from the inside.

He feels dizzy. 

He thinks about how strange it is that they’re here, the two of them, and he feels like this. He would never have thought.

“Merlin,” he says, turns to look, and Merlin smiles at him. 

“Yeah.”

Arthur’s not sure which one of them kisses the other, they’ve both had a few and all that, but he’s pretty sure he’s still thinking about doing it when he feels Merlin’s lips on his for the first time. 

It’s glorious. 

They finish the bottle of red wine and make out, map each other’s bodies with keen hands, and Merlin presses Arthur against the wall and pulls his shirt off and it disappears into the void but Arthur doesn’t care. They shag to Godspeed and Arthur never knew it was something he wanted but it is and he loves it, and he loves Merlin, and it’s amazing. He loves Merlin’s face, loves the feel of his body, loves the sounds he makes, loves the way his eyelids flutter closed when he bends over Arthur and bottoms out, and Arthur is damn near sobbing, that’s how good it is. There’s a book digging to his side but it doesn’t matter, the sweat in his eyes doesn’t matter, or the weird incense smell he’s not used to at all. Merlin is glorious, his cock is glorious, his hands are glorious, and Arthur loves his life so much right now it’s not even real.

Merlin throws out the condom, lights a cigarette, and crawls under the covers, pulls Arthur closer with his free arm, rolls down on his back and blows smoke towards the ceiling. Arthur turns to kiss Merlin’s collarbone, to rest his forehead against his shoulder. Their legs get tangled together almost by accident. 

“Sorry about the books,” Merlin says, picks up a copy of 1984 from where he was just pounding Arthur into the mattress minutes ago, and throws it away. “I forgot.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t even notice.”

Merlin laughs. “You’re cute.”

Merlin keeps an ashtray and a poetry book by his bed. He reads Arthur Siken with a shaky voice, _love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere_ and lights another cigarette with trembling fingers like he’s a bit scared and a bit sorry. Arthur can sense a kind of panic in Merlin’s outlines, like he’s trying to disappear even when he’s right there. When Merlin turns his back on him and pulls up his shoulders like a turtle trying to hide Arthur crawls close and kisses his neck like he never even realised he could do, like he never would ever have done with anyone else. Something about Merlin, though. Something about the way he pulls away doesn’t scare Arthur, doesn’t make him think _this is on me, I am wrong, never good enough, it’s my fault_. It just is. Doesn’t mean anything. We have issues, all of us, and that’s okay. We can deal with it.

He whispers something stupid into Merlin’s ear. _I liked shagging in a pile of books_ , and then, _you’re like a turtle._ Merlin laughs, then sniffles. Arthur breathes in his scent and kisses his neck again, and Merlin pulls Arthur’s hand close to his heart and breathes in slow, breathes out.

They fall asleep like that. Like a couple, curled up together.

Merlin is still there in the morning - why wouldn’t he be, it’s his flat, but he has been known to take extraordinary measures to get away from a shag in the past so this can be counted a small victory. Arthur is there, too. Merlin sits, cross-legged, on the kitchen table with coffee, a pack of cigarettes, and a nervous look in his eyes, and Arthur is leaning against the doorframe as if ready to bolt, but he’s not actually planning on going anywhere. 

He’s just taken a shower, actually. His shirt is still in Merlin’s room. Merlin has just offered him coffee, and he has said yeah, thanks. _We need to talk_ , Merlin has just said, but not in a way that usually ends in never seeing each other again. Arthur has said _yeah, we do_ , but in a way that means something along the lines of I love you, it’s too soon to say that so I won’t but I do.

They’ll talk. That is never easy, but something about the way they look at each other, breathe each other’s air, says they might be able to do alright by themselves. There’s a gentle kiss or two before anyone leaves, and maybe a bit of making out and a tiny blowjob right there in the kitchen, and Merlin holds on and cries and laughs at the same time because he was never one to stick around but Arthur seems persistent, and he’s frighteningly okay with that.


End file.
